ALLETE, Inc. (ALE) To Go Ex-Dividend on August 15th

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, July 25th, NASDAQ reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.7005 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, September 1st. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 15th.

ALLETE has raised its dividend by an average of 3.1% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. ALLETE has a payout ratio of 69.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect ALLETE to earn $4.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.82 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 70.1%.

ALLETE Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of ALE stock opened at $64.56 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $63.05 and its 200-day simple moving average is $60.57. The firm has a market cap of $3.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.52 and a beta of 0.80. ALLETE has a 1-year low of $49.29 and a 1-year high of $65.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.66 and a quick ratio of 0.96.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 9th. The utilities provider reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.09 by ($0.12). ALLETE had a net margin of 13.94% and a return on equity of 7.21%. The firm had revenue of $403.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $581.26 million. As a group, equities analysts forecast that ALLETE will post 3.75 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Mizuho increased their target price on ALLETE from $57.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 16th. StockNews.com began coverage on ALLETE in a research note on Friday. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, ALLETE currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $62.00.

ALLETE Company Profile

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.